June 27 TEXAS----new execution date Luis Ramirez has received an execution date for October 20th; the date should be considered serious. (source: TDCJ and Rick Halperin) UTAH: Lovell's appeal in murder case centers on admission of guilt----Attorneys to offer arguments that could set aside death penalty In Ogden, attorneys are now scheduled to square off Aug. 2 over whether a judge should allow Doug Lovell to withdraw his guilty plea to aggravated murder in the killing of Joyce Yost. On death row since 1993, there is no doubt as to Lovell's guilt, just final house-cleaning on the path of his admissions. He described in detail at his sentencing hearing how and why he killed the 39-year-old South Ogden woman. He spent 5 weeks trying unsuccessfully to show authorities where he said he buried her in Ogden Valley. On April 12, the Utah Supreme Court directed 2nd District Judge Michael Lyon to hear Lovell's 12-year-old motion seeking to withdraw his guilty plea to capital homicide, a death-penalty offense. Lyon inherited Lovell's appeal process from now-retired Judge Stanton Taylor, who sentenced Lovell to death. At issue, the court said in its nine-page decision, are finepoint technicalities such as jurisdictional questions, possible errors in the plea-entry process, and whether Lovell had filed his plea-withdrawal motion soon enough. The decision did not evaluate the unusual plea bargain in Lovell's case -- prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in return for Lovell's taking them to Yost's remains. After pleading guilty, the 5-week search Lovell led in Ogden Valley, complete with backhoes, turned up nothing. The Weber County Attorney's Office then asked for and received the death penalty. Utah has only executed six prison-ers since 1977. Lovell's appeals lawyer has since taken a position as a federal public defender, so two local public defenders have been appointed to take up Lovell's case: veteran Jim Retallick and relative newcomer Ryan Bushell. Whether the taking of Lovell's plea met all legal requirements will likely be at the center of the coming legal battle, Retallick said. Complicated Entering and taking of guilty pleas has become more complicated over the years, he said. "That's why we do so many written plea agreements now," he said. Retallick was to meet with his new client on death row Friday for the first time. The oral arguments on whether Lovell may withdraw his guilty plea are set for Aug. 2. Sworn testimony If Lovell is allowed to withdraw the plea, the next step will be unusual, since a trial would include his own sworn testimony on the stand in 1993 describing Yost's 1985 killing. Only a sentencing hearing was held in 1993, since his guilty plea canceled the need for a trial. Lovell suffocated Yost to prevent her from testifying to his rape of her. He was still convicted of the rape from a transcript of her preliminary hearing testimony. He was serving time in prison on the rape when he was finally arrested for her murder in 1992. (source: Standard-Examiner) VIRGINIA: Review finds no errors in DNA testing in murder 5 scientists reviewing work at the state crime lab reported to Gov. Mark R. Warner this week that they found no errors in DNA testing in the case of an Arlington man scheduled for execution on July 11, the governors spokeswoman said Saturday. The scientists are in the midst of an examination that covers more than 160 cases handled by the lab. They had promised Warner to revisit the DNA evidence used to convict Robin M. Lovitt first so that the governor could consider their findings as he decides whether to halt the execution. Lovitt is sentenced to die for the murder of a pool hall manager. Warner spokeswoman Ellen Qualls said the governor, before making his final decision, will ask the scientists whether their ongoing review has raised any new questions about the Lovitt case. Qualls emphasized that all 5 scientists looked at the test results reached in the Lovitt case. "They didn't find any problems in the way the testing was conducted," she said. Warner assembled the scientific review team after an audit last month found that the state lab twice botched DNA testing in the case of Earl Washington Jr., who spent nearly 18 years in prison for the rape and murder of a Culpeper woman. Washington was pardoned in 2000 and now lives in Virginia Beach. The scientists are reviewing every capital case in Virginia since 1994, including those for the 23 individuals now on death row, as well as a random sampling of tests used for other criminal convictions. None of those cases will receive the detailed review done in the audit of the Washington tests, however. That has raised concerns among defense lawyers and some advocacy groups. A coalition of organizations, including the ACLU of Virginia and the conservative Rutherford Institute, last week asked Warner to retest DNA evidence for the 23 people facing execution. The governor has declined that request. No such re-testing is possible in the Lovitt case, however, because a court clerk improperly destroyed the DNA evidence before Lovitts attorneys could file an appeal. Peter Neufeld, a lawyer who has analyzed the DNA tests from the Lovitt case, said a cursory read-through of the lab report by the scientists is not enough. Neufeld is co-director of The Innocence Project, which assists inmates seeking postconviction DNA testing. He said a state lab examiner and the prosecutor in the Lovitt case misinterpreted the DNA evidence when they explained the results to the jury. Neufeld said DNA found on a pair of scissors, fingered as the murder weapon, contained a pattern that could have come from Lovitt. Jurors were told that Lovitt could not be ruled out, but Neufeld said they were not told that the DNA pattern is found in 45 percent of whites and Hispanics and 35 percent of blacks. "I can only assume that" the scientists "didn't bother to read the testimony in the case," Neufeld said. "Theres no question that the way the limited DNA evidence was used by the prosecution in the trial was a distortion of reality." Neufeld said the state crime lab has refused to provide its complete analysis to Lovitts defense attorneys. (source: Virginian-Pilot) USA: Candidates for the Supreme Court: Judging the short list With the anticipated retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, speculation is rife on the possible nominees on President Bush's short list. Fortunately for Supreme Court handicappers, Bush has only a couple of simple known criteria. First, he wants ideological consistency. Second, he wants longevity. Short of nominating an embryonic stem cell, the White House would prefer a baby boomer with long-term potential. A few candidates have emerged as leading short-listers. For simplicity, each will be rated below based on the gold standard for conservative purity: Karl Rove. On the Rove-o-meter, five Roves represents the purest conservatism while one would represent marginal conservatism. (Related story: A right turn on the high court?) - Samuel Alito, 3rd Circuit (New Jersey) [5.0 Roves out of 5] Called "Scalito" for his unyielding ideological bent in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia. Pluses: Bright, respected and only 55 years old. Minuses: Previously reversed by the Supreme Court, including a 5-4 reversal last week in a death penalty case. Alito would also trigger a fierce abortion debate over a past opinion supporting state restrictions. - Emilio Garza, 5th Circuit (Texas) [5.0 Roves out of 5] A former district court judge, Garza, 58, is an oft-mentioned short-lister. What he lacks in intellectual fervor, he makes up in ideological purity. Pluses: A former Marine, Garza has the cherished Texas connection and would give Bush the added legacy item of appointing the court's 1st Hispanic. Minuses: Garza would also ignite the abortion issue in confirmation. Among other controversial decisions, Garza has questioned the legitimacy of Roe v. Wade and called the decision "inimical to the Constitution." - Alberto Gonzales, U.S. attorney general [3.5 Roves out of 5] Ultimate inside track candidate who already served as a Texas Supreme Court justice. Pluses: A Bush trifecta: Only 49, a Texan, Hispanic. Minuses: Viewed by conservatives as unreliable on abortion due to rulings against parental notification. Liberals see him as tainted by a memo he signed that appeared to endorse torture. He relied on the empty-suit defense in Senate confirmation hearing: I don't actually read or write my memos, I only sign them. That may not fly for a lifetime appointment. - Edith Jones, 5th Circuit (Texas) [5.0 Roves out of 5] Jones has been a short-lister longer than some of her competitors have been judges. Pluses: A Texan, woman, 56 and consistently hard-right. You can set your conservative clock by her. Minuses: A former general counsel for the Texas GOP, she is seen as an activist and has been criticized for her judicial demeanor. Previously reversed by the court, including this month in a death penalty case. - J. Michael Luttig, 4th Circuit (Virginia) [4.5 Roves out of 5] A former law clerk to both Scalia (when he was an appellate judge) and former chief justice Warren Burger, Luttig is the darling of the conservative bar. Pluses: Luttig is only 51 years old - 10 years younger than his colleague J. Harvie Wilkinson of the 4th Circuit. He is smart and originally a Texas native. Bush (who takes particular interest in stories of family hardship) might also be drawn to the fact that Luttig's father was a murder victim in a 1994 carjacking in Texas. Minuses: Luttig wrote the decision striking down the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, a decision affirmed by the Supreme Court. He is on the "hit list" for liberals as someone who would restart the "Federalism Revolution," decrease the rights of criminal defendants and curtail abortion rights. - Michael McConnell, 10th Circuit (Utah) [4.0 Roves out of 5] Appointed in 2002, McConnell is a former University of Chicago law professor who would be the perfect play pal for Scalia. Pluses: McConnell is a respected intellectual, and Bush would like his take on the separation of church and state (he would reduce the separation). At 50, he is also the right age for a legacy appointment. Minuses: McConnell would put the role of religion at the heart of a confirmation fight. Libertarians fear he would reduce the wall of separation of church and state to little more than a constitutional speed bump. - James Harvie Wilkinson III, 4th Circuit (Virginia) [5.0 Roves out of 5] A former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Lewis Powell and former law professor, Wilkinson is given high marks for intellect and demeanor. Pluses: Wilkinson is a well-liked judge who would bring both ideological brawn and theoretical brains to the job. Minuses: He is perhaps the most conservative judge on the most conservative circuit in the country. He has been reversed by the Supreme Court, including the recent enemy combatant decision, in which his view of absolute presidential authority was too extreme even for Chief Justice Rehnquist. He is also 61, a tad older than the White House would prefer. *** Then there are the blank-slate candidates: young conservative jurists with the advantage of few published opinions to attack. Judge John Roberts (D.C. Circuit) leads in this category, but Judges Diane Sykes (7th Circuit) and Jeffrey Sutton (6th Circuit) are also contenders. Of course, it is notable that a majority of the current court members were not on the leading lists before their nominations. Thus, if history is a measure, this current short list is guaranteed to have an accuracy at least equal to a purely random selection of names. Nevertheless, in a city without its own race track, the Supreme Court sweepstakes remains the only game in town. **************************** A right turn on the high court? It is a true sign of desperate times when liberals are fretting over of the expected retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. It is not that they have come to love Rehnquist - once called the "Lone Ranger" for his strident conservative dissents on the Warren Court. Yet, liberals have learned that there are actually judges to the right of Rehnquist, a number of whom are on the short list to replace him. It is like Luke Skywalker celebrating the demise of the Emperor only to learn that he was considered the mild-mannered runt of the litter. Conventional wisdom holds that swapping a Rehnquist, 80, with another conservative simply preserves the current division of the court. This oversimplification ignores the fact that Rehnquist occasionally surprised people, as he did in his 2000 opinion upholding the 1966 Miranda decision and its requirement that police inform arrestees of their rights. Likewise, he joined his liberal colleagues in holding that states could be sued for violating women's rights on family and medical leave - a departure from his own states' rights cases. Such surprises are not expected from the short-list judges - jurists viewed as the purest among the hard-right faithful. Some of the short-listers hold views rejected by Rehnquist as too extreme. Even only Rehnquist's retirement might produce some significant changes. For example, Rehnquist voted in 2003 in a 5-4 ruling to reject First Amendment protections for cross burnings. The possibility of two vacancies has both liberal and conservative groups raising millions of dollars for their war chests. Due to decades of a fairly stagnant 5-4 division, an unprecedented number of fundamental doctrines is dangling by a single vote. This term, the court added 5-4 decisions to this list, including last week's sweeping one that allows cities to take private homes and give the properties to private developers. Moreover, when considered on the basis of age and health, the three other most likely retirements would cause the center of gravity on the court to shift sharply to the right: John Paul Stevens (85), Sandra Day O'Connor (75) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (72 with a history of cancer). The replacement of any of these justices could produce the most transformative doctrinal changes in the court's history. Consider just a few areas resting on the bubble: - Abortion. These three justices represent half of current votes supporting Roe v. Wade. A loss of one of the three could flip a 5-4 decision protecting "partial-birth" abortions. If President Bush replaced just 2, he could deliver the holy grail of conservative politics for at least 4 decades: the overturning of Roe. - Affirmative action. Change one of the three and you change the result in the 2003 Grutter decision, in which the court upheld the use of affirmative action programs in university admissions. - Campaign financing and reform. Replace one of the three and you reverse the court's 5-4 ruling in 2003 upholding federal restrictions on campaign financing - wiping away years of hard-fought legislative reforms. - Church and state. A loss of any of the 3 would likely shift the balance in religion cases, allowing greater entanglement of church and state. - Death penalty. The court's recent 5-4 ruling barring the execution of juveniles could change with the loss of either Stevens or Ginsburg. - Disability. One change could flip a series of 5-4 decisions on disabilities law. These include a decision last year allowing the disabled to sue states for access to courthouses and this year's ruling (with Stevens and Ginsburg in the majority) extending the disability act to foreign cruise liners. - Discrimination. A loss of any of three could reverse the result in a number of discrimination cases, including recent opinions supporting the broad application of Title IX, the federal law imposing gender equity in school sports. - Environmental laws. These three justices are part of a slim five-vote majority on various environmental rulings, such as the recent opinion upholding the right of the Environmental Protection Agency to stop states from issuing construction permits below compliance standards. - Federal sentencing. A loss of either Stevens or Ginsburg could flip the result in the court's recent decision striking down portions of the federal sentencing guidelines - a historic decision giving judges greater discretion in criminal cases. Likewise, such a change could undo the landmark 2000 ruling in Apprendi, in which the court barred judges from increasing sentences without factual findings from a jury. - Gay rights. A loss of 2 of the 3 justices would lose the majority in the 2003 Lawrence decision that struck down anti-sodomy laws as well as some related decisions. - States' rights and federalism. Rehnquist's "Federalism Revolution" struck down various federal statutes as intrusive of states' rights, such as the Violence Against Women Act. 1 or 2 new justices could restart the federalism revolution with a vengeance. These are just a few of the highlights from an impressive list of close decisions and do not include areas such as criminal procedure, where numerous rulings hang by one vote. After decades of division, the sudden emergence of a stable majority would be revolutionary for the country. For Bush, there is nothing less than a legacy at stake. With 2 or 3 appointments, Bush could have the greatest effect on the Supreme Court (and the country) of any president in history. For Rehnquist, such a legacy is already reality. Few chief justices can claim his success in reshaping the court. Indeed, the dismantling of Earl Warren's legacy was the foundation for his own. In terms of his impact on the law, Rehnquist now ranks as one of the greatest chief justices in history. However, even a few years ago, Rehnquist never could have imagined the scene that appears likely to unfold: the streets lined with mournful liberals as the Lone Ranger rides into retirement. (source: USA Today (Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors) (source for both: USA Today)
